The historical form of the name is Staufen, the form Hohenstaufen ("high Staufen") is modern (19th century), introduced for disambiguation from other castles with the same name. In more recent literature, the historical name Staufen seems to regain prominence.[3]

At the same time, Duke Frederick I was engaged to the king's approximately seventeen-year-old daughter, Agnes. Nothing is known about Frederick's life before this event, but he proved to be an imperial ally throughout Henry's struggles against other Swabian lords, namely Rudolf of Rheinfelden, Frederick's predecessor, and the Zähringen and Welf lords. Frederick's brother Otto was elevated to the Strasbourg bishopric in 1082.

Upon Frederick's death, he was succeeded by his son, Duke Frederick II, in 1105. Frederick II remained a close ally of the Salians, he and his younger brother Conrad were named the king's representatives in Germany when the king was in Italy, around 1120, Frederick II married Judith of Bavaria from the rival House of Welf.

The Holy Roman Empire at its greatest extent in the early to middle 13th century under the Hohenstaufen dynasty (1155-1268).

When the last male member of the Salian dynasty, Emperor Henry V, died without heirs in 1125, a controversy arose about the succession. Duke Frederick II and Conrad, the two current male Staufers, by their mother Agnes, were grandsons of late Emperor Henry IV and nephews of Henry V. Frederick attempted to succeed to the throne of the Holy Roman Emperor (formally known as the King of the Romans) through a customary election, but lost to the Saxon duke Lothair of Supplinburg. A civil war between Frederick's dynasty and Lothair's ended with Frederick's submission in 1134, after Lothair's death in 1137, Frederick's brother Conrad was elected King as Conrad III.

Conrad's brother Duke Frederick II died in 1147, and was succeeded in Swabia by his son, Duke Frederick III. When King Conrad III died without adult heir in 1152, Frederick also succeeded him, taking both German royal and Imperial titles.

Frederick I, known as Frederick Barbarossa because of his red beard, struggled throughout his reign to restore the power and prestige of the German monarchy against the dukes, whose power had grown both before and after the Investiture Controversy under his Salian predecessors, as royal access to the resources of the church in Germany was much reduced, Frederick was forced to go to Italy to find the finances needed to restore the king's power in Germany. He was soon crowned emperor in Italy, but decades of warfare on the peninsula yielded scant results, the Papacy and the prosperous city-states of the Lombard League in northern Italy were traditional enemies, but the fear of Imperial domination caused them to join ranks to fight Frederick. Under the skilled leadership of Pope Alexander III, the alliance suffered many defeats but ultimately was able to deny the emperor a complete victory in Italy. Frederick returned to Germany, he had vanquished one notable opponent, his Welf cousin, Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony and Bavaria in 1180, but his hopes of restoring the power and prestige of the monarchy seemed unlikely to be met by the end of his life.

During Frederick's long stays in Italy, the German princes became stronger and began a successful colonization of Slavic lands. Offers of reduced taxes and manorial duties enticed many Germans to settle in the east in the course of the Ostsiedlung; in 1163 Frederick waged a successful campaign against the Kingdom of Poland in order to re-install the Silesian dukes of the Piast dynasty. With the German colonization, the Empire increased in size and came to include the Duchy of Pomerania. A quickening economic life in Germany increased the number of towns and Imperial cities, and gave them greater importance, it was also during this period that castles and courts replaced monasteries as centers of culture. Growing out of this courtly culture, Middle High German literature reached its peak in lyrical love poetry, the Minnesang, and in narrative epic poems such as Tristan, Parzival, and the Nibelungenlied.

Frederick died in 1190 while on the Third Crusade and was succeeded by his son, Henry VI. Elected king even before his father's death, Henry went to Rome to be crowned emperor, he married Queen Constance of Sicily, and deaths in his wife's family gave him claim of succession and possession of the Kingdom of Sicily in 1189 and 1194 respectively, a source of vast wealth. Henry failed to make royal and Imperial succession hereditary, but in 1196 he succeeded in gaining a pledge that his infant son Frederick would receive the German crown. Faced with difficulties in Italy and confident that he would realize his wishes in Germany at a later date, Henry returned to the south, where it appeared he might unify the peninsula under the Hohenstaufen name, after a series of military victories, however, he fell ill and died of natural causes in Sicily in 1197. His underage son Frederick could only succeed him in Sicily and Malta, while in the Empire the struggle between the House of Staufen and the House of Welf erupted once again.

Because the election of a three-year-old boy to be German king appeared likely to make orderly rule difficult, the boy's uncle, Duke Philip of Swabia, brother of late Henry VI, was designated to serve in his place. Other factions however favoured a Welf candidate; in 1198, two rival kings were chosen: the Hohenstaufen Philip of Swabia and the son of the deprived Duke Henry the Lion, the Welf Otto IV. A long civil war began; Philip was about to win when he was murdered by the Bavarian count palatine Otto VIII of Wittelsbach in 1208. Pope Innocent III initially had supported the Welfs, but when Otto, now sole elected monarch, moved to appropriate Sicily, Innocent changed sides and accepted young Frederick II[how?] and his ally, King Philip II of France, who defeated Otto at the 1214 Battle of Bouvines. Frederick had returned to Germany in 1212 from Sicily, where he had grown up, and was elected king in 1215. When Otto died in 1218, Fredrick became the undisputed ruler, and in 1220 was crowned Holy Roman Emperor.

Philip changed the coat of arms from a black lion on a gold shield to three leopards,[4] probably derived from the arms of his Welf rival Otto IV.

Emperor Frederick II spent little time in Germany as his main concerns lay in Southern Italy. He founded the University of Naples in 1224 to train future state officials and reigned over Germany primarily through the allocation of royal prerogatives, leaving the sovereign authority and imperial estates to the ecclesiastical and secular princes, he made significant concessions to the German nobles, such as those put forth in an imperial statute of 1232, which made princes virtually independent rulers within their territories. These measures favoured the further fragmentation of the Empire.

By the 1226 Golden Bull of Rimini, Frederick had assigned the military order of the Teutonic Knights to complete the conquest and conversion of the Prussian lands. A reconciliation with the Welfs took place in 1235, whereby Otto the Child, grandson of the late Saxon duke Henry the Lion, was named Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg, the power struggle with the popes continued and resulted in Fredrick's excommunication in 1227. In 1239, Pope Gregory IX excommunicated Fredrick again, and in 1245 he was condemned as a heretic by a church council, although Frederick was one of the most energetic, imaginative, and capable rulers of the time, he was not concerned with drawing the disparate forces in Germany together. His legacy was thus that local rulers had more authority after his reign than before it, the clergy also had become more powerful.

By the time of Frederick's death in 1250, little centralized power remained in Germany, the Great Interregnum, a period in which there were several elected rival kings, none of whom was able to achieve any position of authority, followed the death of Frederick's son King Conrad IV of Germany in 1254. The German princes vied for individual advantage and managed to strip many powers away from the diminished monarchy. Rather than establish sovereign states however, many nobles tended to look after their families, their many male heirs created more and smaller estates, and from a largely free class of officials previously formed, many of these assumed or acquired hereditary rights to administrative and legal offices. These trends compounded political fragmentation within Germany, the period was ended in 1273 with the election of Rudolph of Habsburg, a godson of Frederick.

Conrad IV was succeeded as duke of Swabia by his only son, two-year-old Conradin. By this time, the office of duke of Swabia had been fully subsumed into the office of the king, and without royal authority had become meaningless; in 1261, attempts to elect young Conradin king were unsuccessful. He also had to defend Sicily against an invasion, sponsored by Pope Urban IV (Jacques Pantaléon) and Pope Clement IV (Guy Folques), by Charles of Anjou, a brother of the French king. Charles had been promised by the popes the Kingdom of Sicily, where he would replace the relatives of Frederick II. Charles had defeated Conradin's uncle Manfred, King of Sicily in the Battle of Benevento on 26 February 1266, the king himself, refusing to flee, rushed into the midst of his enemies and was killed. Conradin's campaign to retake control ended with his defeat in 1268 at the Battle of Tagliacozzo, after which he was handed over to Charles, who had him publicly executed at Naples, with Conradin, the direct line of the Dukes of Swabia finally ceased to exist, though most of the later emperors were descended from the Staufer dynasty indirectly.

During the political decentralization of the late Staufer period, the population had grown from an estimated 8 million in 1200 to about 14 million in 1300, and the number of towns increased tenfold, the most heavily urbanized areas of Germany were located in the south and the west. Towns often developed a degree of independence, but many were subordinate to local rulers if not immediate to the emperor. Colonization of the east also continued in the thirteenth century, most notably through the efforts of the Teutonic Knights. German merchants also began trading extensively on the Baltic.

Family tree of the Hohenstaufen emperors including their relation to succeeding dynasties

Seal of Henry II of Swabia (dated 1216) shows him as a mounted knight with a shield and banner displaying three leopards (three lions passant guardant)as the Hohenstaufen coat of arms; the three lions (later shown just passant) would later become known as the Swabian coat of arms.

^The earliest depictions of the Staufer arms show a single lion; for a short time augmented to two lions, and after 1196 three lions or leopards. The tincture or and sable is attested in 1220. Albrecht Rieber, Karl Reutter, Die Pfalzkapelle in Ulm (1974), p. 204. The seal of Henry (VII) of Germany (1216) shows three leopards (passant guardant).

^The name "Staufen" derives from Stauf (formerly stouf and akin to Early Modern Englishstoup), meaning "chalice", and was commonly applied to conical hills in Swabia in the Middle Ages.

1.
Holy Roman Empire
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The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as Emperor, reviving the title in Western Europe, more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The title was revived in 962 when Otto I was crowned emperor, fashioning himself as the successor of Charlemagne, some historians refer to the coronation of Charlemagne as the origin of the empire, while others prefer the coronation of Otto I as its beginning. Scholars generally concur, however, in relating an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, the office of Holy Roman Emperor was traditionally elective, although frequently controlled by dynasties. Emperor Francis II dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806, after the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon, before 1157, the realm was merely referred to as the Roman Empire. In a decree following the 1512 Diet of Cologne, the name was changed to Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, by the end of the 18th century, the term Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation had fallen out of official use. As Roman power in Gaul declined during the 5th century, local Germanic tribes assumed control, by the middle of the 8th century, however, the Merovingians had been reduced to figureheads, and the Carolingians, led by Charles Martel, had become the de facto rulers. In 751, Martel’s son Pepin became King of the Franks, the Carolingians would maintain a close alliance with the Papacy. In 768 Pepin’s son Charlemagne became King of the Franks and began an expansion of the realm. He eventually incorporated the territories of present-day France, Germany, northern Italy, on Christmas Day of 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, restoring the title in the west for the first time in over three centuries. After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, however, the Carolingian Empire broke apart, according to Regino of Prüm, the parts of the realm spewed forth kinglets, and each part elected a kinglet from its own bowels. After the death of Charles the Fat, those crowned emperor by the pope controlled only territories in Italy, the last such emperor was Berengar I of Italy, who died in 924. Around 900, autonomous stem duchies reemerged in East Francia, on his deathbed, Conrad yielded the crown to his main rival, Henry the Fowler of Saxony, who was elected king at the Diet of Fritzlar in 919. Henry reached a truce with the raiding Magyars, and in 933 he won a first victory against them in the Battle of Riade, Henry died in 936, but his descendants, the Liudolfing dynasty, would continue to rule the Eastern kingdom for roughly a century. Upon Henry the Fowlers death, Otto, his son and designated successor, was elected King in Aachen in 936 and he overcame a series of revolts from an elder brother and from several dukes. After that, the managed to control the appointment of dukes. In 951, Otto came to the aid of Adelaide, the queen of Italy, defeating her enemies, marrying her. In 955, Otto won a victory over the Magyars in the Battle of Lechfeld

2.
Kingdom of Sicily
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The Kingdom of Sicily was a state that existed in the south of the Apennine peninsula from its founding by Roger II in 1130 until 1816. It was a state of the County of Sicily, which had been founded in 1071 during the Norman conquest of the southern peninsula. Until 1282 the Kingdom covered not only the island of Sicily, but also the whole Mezzogiorno region of the southern Apennines, the island was divided into three regions, Val di Mazara, Val Demone and Val di Noto, val being the Arabic word meaning district. In 1282, a revolt against Angevin rule, known as the Sicilian Vespers, the island became a separate kingdom under the Crown of Aragon. After 1302 the island kingdom was called the Kingdom of Trinacria. Often the kingship was vested in another such as the King of Aragon. In 1816 the island Kingdom of Sicily merged with the Kingdom of Naples to form the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In 1860 the Two Sicilies were amalgamated with Sardinia and several northern city-states and duchies to form the Kingdom of Sardinia which in 1861 renamed itself the Kingdom of Italy, after taking Apulia and Calabria, Roger occupied Messina with an army of 700 knights. In 1068, Roger I of Sicily and his men defeated the Muslims at Misilmeri but the most crucial battle was the siege of Palermo, which led to Sicily being completely under Norman control by 1091. The Norman Kingdom was created on Christmas Day,1130, by Roger II of Sicily, with the agreement of Pope Innocent II, Roger threw his support behind the Antipope Anacletus II, who enthroned him as King of Sicily on Christmas Day 1130. In 1136, the rival of Anacletus, Pope Innocent II, convinced Lothair III, Two main armies, one led by Lothair, the other by Duke of Bavaria Henry the Proud, invaded Sicily. On the river Tronto, William of Loritello surrendered to Lothair and this was followed by Count Hugh II of Molise. The two armies were united at Bari, from where in 1137 they continued their campaign, Roger offered to give Apulia as a fief to the Empire, which Lothair refused after being pressured by Innocent. At the same period the army of Lothair revolted, then Lothair, who had hoped for the complete conquest of Sicily, gave Capua and Apulia from the Kingdom of Sicily to Rogers enemies. Innocent protested, claiming that Apulia fell under papal claims, Lothair turned north, but died while crossing the Alps on December 4,1137. At the Second Council of the Lateran in April 1139, Innocent excommunicated Roger for maintaining a schismatic attitude, on March 22,1139, at Galluccio, Rogers son Roger III, Duke of Apulia ambushed the papal troops with a thousand knights and captured the pope. On March 25,1139, Innocent was forced to acknowledge the kingship and it was through his admiral George of Antioch that Roger then proceeded to conquer the Mahdia in Africa, taking the unofficial title King of Africa. At the same time Rogers fleet attacked the Byzantine Empire, making Sicily the leading power in the Mediterranean Sea for almost a century

3.
Kingdom of Jerusalem
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The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was a crusader state established in the Southern Levant by Godfrey of Bouillon in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, the sometimes so-called First Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted from 1099 to 1187, when it was almost entirely overrun by Saladin. This second kingdom is called the Second Kingdom of Jerusalem or the Kingdom of Acre. Three other crusader states founded during and after the First Crusade were located north, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch. While all three were independent, they were tied to Jerusalem. Beyond these to the north and west lay the states of Armenian Cilicia, further east, various Muslim emirates were located which were ultimately allied with the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. Jerusalem itself fell to Saladin in 1187, and in the 13th century the kingdom was reduced to a few cities along the Mediterranean coast. In this period, the kingdom was ruled by the Lusignan dynasty of the Kingdom of Cyprus, dynastic ties also strengthened with Tripoli, Antioch, and Armenia. The kingdom was soon dominated by the Italian city-states of Venice and Genoa. Emperor Frederick II claimed the kingdom by marriage, but his presence sparked a war among the kingdoms nobility. The kingdom became more than a pawn in the politics and warfare of the Ayyubid and Mamluk dynasties in Egypt, as well as the Khwarezmian. The Mamluk sultans Baibars and al-Ashraf Khalil eventually reconquered all the remaining crusader strongholds, the kingdom was ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse, although the crusaders themselves and their descendants were an elite Catholic minority. They imported many customs and institutions from their homelands in Western Europe, the kingdom also inherited oriental qualities, influenced by the pre-existing customs and populations. The majority of the inhabitants were native Christians, especially Greek and Syrian Orthodox, as well as Sunni. The native Christians and Muslims, who were a lower class, tended to speak Greek and Arabic, while the crusaders spoke French. There were also a number of Jews and Samaritans. According to the Jewish writer Benjamin of Tudela, who travelled through the kingdom around 1170, since sets a lower bound for the Samaritan population at 1,500, since the contemporary Tolidah, a Samaritan chronicle, also mentions communities in Gaza and Acre. The First Crusade was preached at the Council of Clermont in 1095 by Pope Urban II, however, the main objective quickly became the control of the Holy Land

4.
Frederick I, Duke of Swabia
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Frederick I was Duke of Swabia from 1079 to his death, the first ruler from the House of Hohenstaufen. When Frederick succeeded his father, he had Hohenstaufen Castle erected on the mountain in the Swabian Jura range. He also founded a Benedictine abbey at the site of former Lorch Castle about 1100, by his mother he ruled over large Alsatian estates around Schlettstadt and Hagenau. When during the Investiture Controversy the Swabian duke Rudolf of Rheinfelden was elected anti-king to King Henry IV of Germany, in turn Henry vested him with the Swabian ducal dignity in 1079 and also gave him the hand of his seven-year-old daughter Agnes of Waiblingen. Contested by Rudolfs son Berthold of Rheinfelden and Berthold of Zähringen, Frederick only ruled over the parts of the Swabian duchy down to Ulm. Finally in 1098, he and Berthold of Zähringen reached a compromise, about 1086/87, Frederick married Agnes, daughter of Emperor Henry IV. Both are buried in Klosterneuburg Monastery, dukes of Swabia family tree Medieval Lands Project on Frederick I, Duke of Swabia

5.
Conradin
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Conrad, called the Younger or the Boy, but usually known by the diminutive Conradin, was the Duke of Swabia, King of Jerusalem, and King of Sicily. Conradin was born in Wolfstein, Bavaria, to Conrad IV of Germany and he is sometimes known as Conrad V of Germany. Though he never succeeded his father in Germany, he was recognized as king of the Germans, Sicily, having lost his father in 1254, he grew up at the court of his uncle and guardian, Louis II, Duke of Upper Bavaria. His guardians were able to hold Swabia for him, Jerusalem was held by a relative from the royal house of Cyprus as regent. In Sicily, his fathers half-brother Manfred continued as regent, little is known of his appearance and character except that he was beautiful as Absalom, and spoke good Latin. Innocents successor, Pope Alexander IV, continuing this policy, offered the Hohenstaufen lands in Germany to King Alfonso X of Castile and forbade Conradins election as king of the Romans. Having assumed the title of King of Jerusalem and Sicily, Conradin took possession of the Duchy of Swabia in 1262, and remained for some time in his duchy. Conradins first invitation to Italy came from the Guelphs of Florence, they asked him to arms against Manfred. Louis refused this invitation on his nephews behalf, count Guido de Montefeltro representing Henry of Castile, Senator of Rome, offered him the support of the eternal city. Pledging his lands, Conradin crossed the Alps and issued a manifesto at Verona setting forth his claim on Sicily. Notwithstanding the defection of his uncle Louis and of other companions who returned to Germany, the threats of Clement IV, only Palermo and Messina remained loyal to Charles. The revolt spread to Calabria and Apulia, in November of the same year the Church excommunicated him, but his fleet won a victory over that of Charles, and in July 1268, Conradin himself entered with immense enthusiasm in Rome. Having strengthened his forces, he marched towards Lucera to join the Saracen troops settled there since the time of his grandfather. On 23 August 1268 his multi-national army of Italian, Spanish, Roman, Arab and German troops encountered that of Charles at Tagliacozzo and he was tried as a traitor, and on 29 October 1268 he and Frederick were beheaded. With Conradins death at 16, the legitimate Hohenstaufen line became extinct, in the 14th century Codex Manesse, a collection of medieval German lyrics, preserved at Heidelberg, there appear two songs written by Conradin, and his fate has formed the subject of several dramas. His hereditary Kingdom of Jerusalem passed to the heirs of his great-great-grandmother Isabella I of Jerusalem, Conradins grandmothers first cousin Mary of Antioch also staked her claim on basis of proximity of blood, which she later sold to Conradins executioner Charles of Anjou. The general heiress of his Kingdom of Sicily and the Duchy of Swabia was his aunt Margaret, half-sister of his father Conrad IV and married with Albert and their son Frederick claimed Sicily and Swabia on her right. However, these met with little favor

6.
Duke of Swabia
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The Dukes of Swabia were the rulers of the Duchy of Swabia during the Middle Ages. Swabia was one of the five stem duchies of the medieval German kingdom, the most notable family to rule Swabia was the Hohenstaufen family, who held it, with a brief interruption, from 1079 until 1268. For much of period, the Hohenstaufen were also Holy Roman Emperors. With the death of Conradin, the last Hohenstaufen duke, the duchy itself disintegrated, some of the more important immediate successor states were, During the following century, several of these states were acquired by the County of Württemberg or the Duchy of Austria, as marked above. In 1803 Bavarian Swabia was annexed by Bavaria and shortly became part of the Kingdom of Bavaria

7.
King of Italy
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King of Italy was the title given to the ruler of the Kingdom of Italy after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The first to take the title was Odoacer, a military leader, in the late 5th century. With the Frankish conquest of Italy in the 8th century, the Carolingians assumed the title, the last Emperor to claim the title was Charles V in the 16th century. During this period, the holders of the title were crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy, although Napoleon I used the title from 1805 to 1814, it was not until the Unification of Italy in the 1860s that a Kingdom of Italy was restored. From 1861 the House of Savoy held the title as monarchs of the peninsula until the last King of Italy, Umberto II. After the deposition of the last Western Emperor in 476, Heruli leader Odoacer was appointed Dux Italiae by the reigning Byzantine Emperor Zeno. Later, the Germanic foederati, the Scirians and the Heruli, as well as a segment of the Italic Roman army. In 493, the Ostrogothic king Theoderic the Great killed Odoacer, Ostrogothic rule ended when Italy was reconquered by the Byzantine Empire in 552. In the 8th century, estrangement between the Italians and the Byzantines allowed the Lombards to capture the remaining Roman enclaves in northern Italy. However, in 774, they were defeated by the Franks under Charlemagne, after the death of Charles III the Fat in 887, Italy fell into instability and a number of kings attempted to establish themselves as independent Italian monarchs. During this period, known as the Feudal Anarchy, the title Rex Italicorum was introduced, after the breakup of the Frankish empire, Otto I added Italy to the Holy Roman Empire and continued the use of the title Rex Italicorum. The last to use this title was Henry II, subsequent emperors used the title king of Italy until Charles V. At first they were crowned in Pavia, later Milan, in 1805, Napoleon I was crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy at the Milan Cathedral. The next year, Holy Roman Emperor Francis II abdicated his imperial title, from the deposition of Napoleon I until the Italian Unification, there was no Italian monarch claiming the overarching title. The Risorgimento successfully established a dynasty, the House of Savoy, over the peninsula, uniting the kingdoms of Sardinia. The monarchy was superseded by the Italian Republic, after a referendum was held on 2 June 1946 after the World War II. The Italian monarchy formally ended on 12 June of that year, Guy of Spoleto opponent of Berengar, ruled most of Italy but was deposed by Arnulf. Lambert of Spoleto subking of his father Guy before 894, reduced to Spoleto 894–895, Arnulf of Carinthia Ratold In 896, Arnulf and Ratold lost control of Italy, which was divided between Berengar and Lambert, Berengar I seized Lamberts portion upon the latters death in 898

8.
Holy Roman Emperor
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The Holy Roman Emperor was the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. From an autocracy in Carolingian times the title evolved into an elected monarchy chosen by the Prince-electors, until the Reformation the Emperor elect was required to be crowned by the Pope before assuming the imperial title. The title was held in conjunction with the rule of the Kingdom of Germany, in theory, the Holy Roman Emperor was primus inter pares among the other Catholic monarchs, in practice, a Holy Roman Emperor was only as strong as his army and alliances made him. Various royal houses of Europe, at different times, effectively became hereditary holders of the title, after the Reformation many of the subject states and most of those in Germany were Protestant while the Emperor continued to be Catholic. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by the last Emperor as a result of the collapse of the polity during the Napoleonic wars, from the time of Constantine I the Roman emperors had, with very few exceptions, taken on a role as promoters and defenders of Christianity. In the west, the title of Emperor was revived in 800, as the power of the papacy grew during the Middle Ages, popes and emperors came into conflict over church administration. The best-known and most bitter conflict was known as the Investiture Controversy. After Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III, no pope appointed an emperor again until the coronation of Otto the Great in 962. Under Otto and his successors, much of the former Carolingian kingdom of Eastern Francia fell within the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire, the various German princes elected one of their peers as King of the Germans, after which he would be crowned as emperor by the Pope. After Charles Vs coronation, all succeeding emperors were called elected Emperor due to the lack of papal coronation, the term sacrum in connection with the medieval Roman Empire was first used in 1157 under Frederick I Barbarossa. Charles V was the last Holy Roman Emperor to be crowned by the Pope, the final Holy Roman Emperor-elect, Francis II, abdicated in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars that saw the Empires final dissolution. The standard designation of the Holy Roman Emperor was August Emperor of the Romans, the word Holy had never been used as part of that title in official documents. In German-language historiography, the term Römisch-deutscher Kaiser is used to distinguish the title from that of Roman Emperor on one hand, the English term Holy Roman Emperor is a modern shorthand for emperor of the Holy Roman Empire not corresponding to the historical style or title. Successions to the kingship were controlled by a variety of complicated factors, elections meant the kingship of Germany was only partially hereditary, unlike the kingship of France, although sovereignty frequently remained in a dynasty until there were no more male successors. The Electoral council was set at seven princes by the Golden Bull of 1356, another elector was added in 1690, and the whole college was reshuffled in 1803, a mere three years before the dissolution of the Empire. After 1438, the Kings remained in the house of Habsburg and Habsburg-Lorraine, with the exception of Charles VII. Maximilian I and his successors no longer travelled to Rome to be crowned as Emperor by the Pope, Maximilian therefore named himself Elected Roman Emperor in 1508 with papal approval. This title was in use by all his uncrowned successors, of his successors only Charles V, the immediate one, received a papal coronation

9.
King of Sicily
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See Emirate of Sicily Sicily was granted, pending its Christian reconquest, to Robert Guiscard as duke in 1059 by Pope Nicholas II. The Guiscard granted it as a county to his brother Roger, Roger II received royal investiture from Antipope Anacletus II in 1130 and recognition from Pope Innocent II in 1139. Constance was married to the Emperor Henry VI and he pressed his claim to the kingdom from William IIs death, there is evidence that, during the baronial revolt of 1197, there was an attempt to make Count Jordan Lupin of Bovino king in opposition to Henry VI. He may even have been crowned and seems to have had the support of Constance, in the end he was captured and executed. He is accepted as a pretender to the throne by modern historians Evelyn Jamison, Manfred was regent of Sicily for his nephew, the child Conrad II, but took the crown in 1258, and continued to fight to keep the kingdom under the Hohenstaufen. In 1254 the pope, having declared the kingdom a papal possession, offered the crown to the King of Englands son, Edmund Crouchback, but the English never succeeded in taking the kingdom. In 1262 the pope reversed his previous decision and granted the kingdom to the King of Frances brother, Charles of Anjou, conradin continued his claim to the throne until his death by decapitation perpetrated by Charles of Anjou in 1268. Edmund Crouchback, son of King Henry III of England, claimed the Crown of Sicily between 1254 and 1263, the claim was taken seriously by both him and his father, but was completely ineffectual. Peter III of Aragon, Manfreds son in law, of the House of Barcelona, thereafter the old Kingdom of Sicily was centred on the mainland, with capital at Naples, and although informally called Kingdom of Naples it was still known formally as Kingdom of Sicily. Thus, there were two Sicilies — the island kingdom, however, was often called Sicily beyond the Lighthouse or Trinacria, the Duke of Savoy ceded it to Austria in 1720 by the Treaty of The Hague. Charles I, Duke of Parma conquered the kingdom during the War of the Polish Succession, at the end of the war Sicily was ceded to the new Charles V of Sicily. In 1816 the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of Sicily were merged as the new Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, List of viceroys of Sicily List of Counts of Apulia and Calabria List of monarchs of Naples List of monarchs of the Two Sicilies

10.
King of Jerusalem
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The King of Jerusalem was the supreme ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Crusader state founded by Christian princes in 1099 when the First Crusade took the city. Godfrey of Bouillon, the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, himself refused the title of king, thus, the title of king was only introduced for his successor, King Baldwin I in 1100. The city of Jerusalem was lost in 1187, but the Kingdom of Jerusalem survived, the city of Jerusalem was re-captured in the Sixth Crusade, during 1229–39 and 1241–44. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was finally dissolved with the fall of Acre, after the Crusader States ceased to exist, the title of King of Jerusalem was claimed by a number of European noble houses descended from the kings of Cyprus or the kings of Naples. The title of King of Jerusalem is currently used by Felipe VI of Spain and it was claimed by Otto von Habsburg as Habsburg pretender until his renunciation of all claims in 1958, and by the kings of Italy until 1946. The following year, his brother Baldwin I was the first to use the title king, the kingship of Jerusalem was partially elected and partially hereditary. During the height of the kingdom in the century there was a royal family. Nevertheless, the king was elected, or at least recognized, here the king was considered a primus inter pares, and in his absence his duties were performed by his seneschal. The purpose-built royal palace used from the 1160s onwards was located south of Jerusalems citadel, the Kingdom of Jerusalem introduced French feudal structures to the Levant. The king personally held several fiefs incorporated into the royal domain and he was also responsible for leading the kingdom into battle, although this duty could be passed to a constable. While several contemporary European states were moving towards centralized monarchies, the king of Jerusalem was continually losing power to the strongest of his barons and this was partially due to the young age of many of the kings, and the frequency of regents from the ranks of the nobles. After the fall of Jerusalem in 1187, the capital of the kingdom was moved to Acre, in this period the kingship was often simply a nominal position, held by a European ruler who never actually lived in Acre. The claim was made in 1264 as senior descendant and rightful heir of Alice of Champagne, second daughter of Queen Isabella I, Hugh being the son of their eldest daughter. But was passed over by the Haute Cour in favour of his cousin, Hugh of Antioch, after Conrad IIIs execution by Charles I of Sicily in 1268, the kingship was held by the Lusignan family, who were simultaneously kings of Cyprus. However, Charles I of Sicily purchased the rights of one of the heirs of the kingdom in 1277, in that year, he sent Roger of Sanseverino to the East as his bailiff. Roger captured Acre and obtained a forced homage from the barons, Roger was recalled in 1282 due to the Sicilian Vespers and left Odo Poilechien in his place to rule. His resources and authority was minimal, and he was ejected by Henry II of Cyprus when he arrived from Cyprus for his coronation as King of Jerusalem, Acre was captured by the Mamluks in 1291, eliminating the crusader presence on the mainland. In 1127 Fulk V, Count of Anjou received an embassy from King Baldwin II of Jerusalem, Baldwin II had no male heirs but had already designated his daughter Melisende to succeed him

11.
King of the Romans
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King of the Romans was the title used by the German king following his election by the princes from the time of Emperor Henry II onward. The title was predominantly a claim to become Holy Roman Emperor and was dependent upon coronation by the Pope, the title originally referred to any elected king who had not yet been granted the Imperial Regalia and title of Emperor at the hands of the Pope. Later it came to be used solely for the apparent to the Imperial throne between his election and his succession upon the death of the Emperor. The territory of East Francia was not referred to as the Kingdom of Germany or Regnum Teutonicum by contemporary sources until the 11th century, during this time, the kings claim to coronation was increasingly contested by the papacy culminating in the fierce Investiture Controversy. Pope Gregory VII insisted on using the derogatory term Teutonicorum Rex in order to imply that Henrys authority was merely local, Henry continued to regularly use the title Romanorum Rex until he finally was crowned Emperor by Antipope Clement III in 1084. Henrys successors imitated this practice, and were also called Romanorum Rex before, candidates for the kingship were at first the heads of the Germanic stem duchies. As these units broke up, rulers of principalities and even non-Germanic rulers were considered for the position. The only requirements generally observed were that the candidate be a male, a Catholic Christian. The kings were elected by several Imperial Estates, often in the city of Frankfurt after 1147. They were the Prince-Archbishops of Mainz, Trier and Cologne as well as the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Saxon duke, after the Investiture Controversy, Charles intended to strengthen the legal status of the Rex Romanorum beyond Papal approbation. Consequently, among his successors only Sigismund and Frederick III were still crowned Emperors in Rome, the Golden Bull remained effective as constitutional law until the Empires dissolution in 1806. After his election, the new king would be crowned as King of the Romans, though the ceremony was no more than a symbolic validation of the election result, it was solemnly celebrated. The details of Ottos coronation in 936 are described by the medieval chronicler Widukind of Corvey in his Res gestae saxonicae, the kings received the Imperial Crown from at least 1024, at the coronation of Conrad II. In 1198 the Hohenstaufen candidate Philip of Swabia was crowned Rex Romanorum at Mainz Cathedral, at some time after the ceremony, the king would, if possible, cross the Alps, to receive coronation in Pavia or Milan with the Iron Crown of Lombardy as King of Italy. Finally, he would travel to Rome and be crowned Emperor by the Pope, in such cases, the king might retain the title King of the Romans for his entire reign. At this time Maximilian also took the new title King of the Germans or King in Germany, the following were ruling Kings of the Romans, i. e. men who ruled the Kingdom without subordination to another King but who had not yet been crowned Emperor. The Holy Roman Empire was an elective monarchy, no person had a legal right to the succession simply because he was related to the current Emperor. However, the Emperor could, and often did, have an elected to succeed him after his death

12.
King of Burgundy
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The following is a list of the kings of the two Kingdoms of Burgundy, and a number of related political entities devolving from Carolingian machinations over family relations. The Burgundians had left Bornholm c.300 and settled near the Vistula, jordanes relates that in this area they were thoroughly defeated by the Gepids in the 4th century and then moved to the Rhineland. Gebicca Gundomar I, son of Gebicca Giselher, son of Gebicca Gunther, Burgundy was divided between the brothers Charles the Bald, who received the smaller part, west of the river Saône. This entity was officially called regnum burgundiae, but since the King of France delegated administrations to dukes, the territory became known as the Duchy of Burgundy or Bourgogne. Lothair I received the part, east of the river Saône. The Burgundian territories were divided between, Lothair II, who received the parts, and Charles of Provence, who received the southern parts including Provence, Lyon. His realm was called the regnum provinciae, for the kings of Provence before its union with the rest of Burgundy, see the list of dukes, kings, counts, and margraves of Provence. Lothar II, 855–869 Lothar subsumed his portion of Burgundy into the Kingdom of Lotharingia and at his brother Charles death, when Lothar II died in 869, his realm was divided between his uncles Charles the Bald and Louis the German in the Treaty of Mersen. At first, he tried to reunite the realm of Lothar II, Rudolf I Rudolf II In 933 Rudolph ceded his claims to the Kingdom of Italy to Hugh of Arles and in return gained the Kingdom of Provence, thus reuniting the two territories. Conrad I Rudolph III In 1032 the Kingdom of Burgundy was incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire as a third kingdom, after the early death of Emperor Henry III, his widow Agnes of Poitou acted as Regent for his young son Henry IV. She made Rudolf von Rheinfelden duke of Swabia and also conferred on him the powers over Burgundy. However, when Rudolf was elected anti-king, Roman king Henry IV in 1079 stripped him of his powers and delegated them to the Prince-bishops of Lausanne and Sitten. Lacking a proper title, the Zähringer called themselves dukes and rectors of Burgundy, the royal chancellory however consistently avoided this term and the effective power of the rector was restricted to the possessions of the Zähringer east of the Jura. Any attempts to enforce the Zähringers claims and to royal authority into the western and southern parts of the kingdom failed. After these failures, Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, gained a hold of the western districts in 1156 by marrying Beatrice. This success permanently confined the Zähringer between Jura and Alps, where they used their powers to expand their possessions. In 1218, Berthold V, Duke of Zähringen died without issue and this appointment was only of momentary importance and after Henry had been elected King of Germany in April 1220, the title disappeared for good. Also, the decline of power inside the kingdom of Burgundy remained irreversible

13.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period

14.
Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor
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Frederick I, also known as Frederick Barbarossa, was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death. He was elected King of Germany at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and he became King of Italy in 1155 and was crowned Roman Emperor by Pope Adrian IV on 18 June 1155. Two years later, the term sacrum first appeared in a document in connection with his Empire and he was later formally crowned King of Burgundy, at Arles on 30 June 1178. He was named Barbarossa by the northern Italian cities which he attempted to rule, Barbarossa means red beard in Italian, in German, he was known as Kaiser Rotbart, before his imperial election, Frederick was by inheritance Duke of Swabia. He was the son of Duke Frederick II of the Hohenstaufen dynasty and Judith, daughter of Henry IX, Duke of Bavaria, Frederick therefore descended from the two leading families in Germany, making him an acceptable choice for the Empires prince-electors. Historians consider him among the Holy Roman Empires greatest medieval emperors, in 1147 he became Duke of the southern German region of Swabia, and shortly afterwards made his first trip to the East, accompanied by his uncle, the German king Conrad III, on the Second Crusade. The expedition proved to be a disaster, but Frederick distinguished himself, when Conrad died in February 1152, only Frederick and the prince-bishop of Bamberg were at his deathbed. Frederick energetically pursued the crown and at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 the kingdoms princely electors designated him as the next German king and he was crowned King of the Romans at Aachen several days later, on 9 March 1152. Fredericks father was from the Hohenstaufen family, and his mother was from the Welf family, the Hohenstaufens were often called Ghibellines, which derives from the Italianized name for Waiblingen castle, the family seat in Swabia, the Welfs, in a similar Italianization, were called Guelfs. The reigns of Henry IV and Henry V left the status of the German empire in disarray, for a quarter of a century following the death of Henry V in 1125, the German monarchy was largely a nominal title with no real power. The king was chosen by the princes, was given no resources outside those of his own duchy, the royal title was furthermore passed from one family to another to preclude the development of any dynastic interest in the German crown. When Frederick I of Hohenstaufen was chosen as king in 1152, royal power had been in abeyance for over twenty-five years. The only real claim to lay in the rich cities of northern Italy. The Salian line had died out with the death of Henry V in 1125, one of the Hohenstaufens gained the throne as Conrad III of Germany. When Frederick Barbarossa succeeded his uncle in 1152, there seemed to be excellent prospects for ending the feud, the Welf duke of Saxony, Henry the Lion, would not be appeased, however, remaining an implacable enemy of the Hohenstaufen monarchy. Barbarossa had the duchies of Swabia and Franconia, the force of his own personality, the Germany that Frederick tried to unite was a patchwork of more than 1600 individual states, each with its own prince. A few of these, such as Bavaria and Saxony, were large, many were too small to pinpoint on a map. The titles afforded to the German king were Caesar, Augustus, by the time Frederick would assume these, they were little more than propaganda slogans with little other meaning

15.
Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor
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Henry VI, a member of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, was King of Germany from 1190 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1191 until his death. From 1194 he was also King of Sicily and he was the second son of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and his consort Beatrix of Burgundy. In 1186 he was married to Constance of Sicily, the daughter of the Norman king Roger II of Sicily. Henry, still stuck in the Hohenstaufen conflict with the House of Welf, had to enforce the claims by his wife against her nephew Count Tancred of Lecce. Based on a ransom for the release of King Richard I of England, he conquered Sicily in 1194, however. Henry was born in autumn 1165 at the Valkhof pfalz of Nijmegen to Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, at the age of four, his father had him elected King of the Romans during the Hoftag in Bamberg at Pentecost 1169, and Henry was crowned on 15 August at Aachen Cathedral. Henry was fluent in Latin and, according to the chronicler Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, was distinguished by gifts of knowledge, wreathed in flowers of eloquence, and learned in canon and Roman law. He was a patron of poets and poetry, and he almost certainly composed the song Kaiser Heinrich, in one of those he describes a romance that makes him forget all his earthly power, and neither riches nor royal dignity can outweigh his yearning for that lady. Having returned to Germany in 1178, Henry supported his father against insurgent Duke Henry the Lion and he and his younger brother Frederick received the knightly accolade at Mainz in 1184. The emperor had already entered negotiations with King William II of Sicily to betroth his son. He and Constance were married on 27 January 1186 in Milan, in the Hohenstaufen conflict with Pope Urban III, Henry moved to the March of Tuscany, and with the aid of his liensman Markward von Annweiler devastated the adjacent territory of the Papal States. Back in Germany, he took the reins of the Empire from his father, further difficulties arose when the exiled Welf duke Henry the Lion returned from England and began to subdue large estates in his former Duchy of Saxony. A Hohenstaufen campaign to Saxony had to be abandoned when King Henry received the message of the death of King William II of Sicily on 18 November 1189, the Sicilian vice-chancellor Matthew of Ajello pursued the succession of Count Tancred of Lecce and gained the support of the Roman Curia. To assert his own rights in the dispute, Henry initially supported Tancreds rival Count Roger of Andria. While he sent an Imperial army to Italy, Henry initially stayed in Germany to settle the succession of Louis III, Landgrave of Thuringia and he had planned to seize the Thuringian landgraviate as a reverted fief, but Louis brother Hermann was able to reach his enfeoffment. The next year, the king followed his army across the Alps, in Lodi he negotiated with Eleanor of Aquitaine, widow of King Henry II of England, to break the engagement of her son King Richard with Alys, a daughter of late King Louis VII of France. He hoped to deteriorate English-French relations and to isolate Richard, who had offended him by backing Count Tancred in Sicily, Henry entered into further negotiations with the Lombard League cities and with Pope Celestine III on his Imperial coronation, and ceded Tusculum to the Pope. At Easter Monday on 15 April 1191, in Rome, Henry and his consort Constance were crowned Emperor, the crown of Sicily, however, was harder to gain, as the Sicilian nobility had chosen Count Tancred of Lecce as their king

16.
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
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Frederick II was a Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily in the Middle Ages, a member of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, however, his enemies, especially the popes, prevailed, and his dynasty collapsed soon after his death. As such, he was King of Germany, of Italy, at the age of three, he was crowned King of Sicily as a co-ruler with his mother, Constance of Hauteville, the daughter of Roger II of Sicily. His other royal title was King of Jerusalem by virtue of marriage, Pope Gregory IX went so far as to call him an Antichrist. Speaking six languages, Frederick was a patron of science. He played a role in promoting literature through the Sicilian School of poetry. His Sicilian royal court in Palermo, from around 1220 to his death, saw the first use of a form of an Italo-Romance language. The poetry that emanated from the school had a significant influence on literature and he was also the first king who explicitly outlawed trials by ordeal as they were considered irrational. After his death, his line died out and the House of Hohenstaufen came to an end. Born in Iesi, near Ancona, Italy, Frederick was the son of the emperor Henry VI and he was known as the puer Apuliae. Some chronicles say that his mother, the forty-year-old Constance, gave birth to him in a square in order to forestall any doubt about his origin. In 1196 at Frankfurt am Main the infant Frederick was elected King of the Germans and his rights in Germany were disputed by Henrys brother Philip of Swabia and Otto of Brunswick. At the death of his father in 1197, Frederick was in Italy travelling towards Germany when the bad news reached his guardian, Conrad of Spoleto. Frederick was hastily brought back to his mother Constance in Palermo, Sicily, Constance of Sicily was in her own right queen of Sicily, and she established herself as regent. Upon Constances death in 1198, Pope Innocent III succeeded as Fredericks guardian, Fredericks tutor during this period was Cencio, who would become Pope Honorius III. However, Markward of Annweiler, with the support of Henrys brother, Philip of Swabia, reclaimed the regency for himself, in 1200, with the help of Genoese ships, he landed in Sicily and one year later seized the young Frederick. He thus ruled Sicily until 1202, when he was succeeded by another German captain, William of Capparone, Frederick was subsequently under tutor Walter of Palearia, until, in 1208, he was declared of age. His first task was to reassert his power over Sicily and southern Italy, Otto of Brunswick had been crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Innocent III in 1209

17.
Hohenstaufen Castle
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Hohenstaufen Castle is a ruin, lying above the Hohenstaufen locality, today part of Göppingen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The hill castle was seat of the now-defunct House of Hohenstaufen, Hohenstaufen Castle can be found on Hohenstaufen Mountain,684 m above sea level. The word Stauf means drinking vessel and refers to the shape of the mountain. Hohenstaufen castle was built about 1070 by Frederick I of Hohenstaufen—even before he became Duke of Swabia—, until the 13th century, the castle was a possession of the imperial and royal family, the Hohenstaufen dynasty. In 1181, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa stayed there, in 1208, Irene Angelina, the widow of Barbarossas son, after the fall of the Hohenstaufen in 1268, the castle was declared an imperial possession by the Habsburg king Rudolf I of Germany. The strategically and symbolically important location was a constant bone of contention between the Counts of Württemberg and the Holy Roman Emperor, in 1372, Hohenstaufen Castle finally was in the hands of the Württemberg rulers. Therefore, only a small force defended the castle in 1525, stones from the castle were later used in the construction of the Renaissance Göppingen Castle. Since the German unification of 1871, Hohenstaufen Castle has been regarded as a national monument, the archaeologist Walther Veeck undertook excavations on it between 1936 and 1938, and further excavations were made between 1967 and 1971, uncovering and securing the castle foundations. A Hohenstaufen memorial stele was inaugurated in 2002, in 2009 additional work was done to preserve the site. The Staufer Museum, located at the intersection of Pfarrgasse and Kaiserbergsteige in Hohenstaufen, contains artifacts from, the trail that leads to the castle site starts between the two churches that are adjacent to the Staufer Museum

18.
Conical hill
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A conical hill is a landform with a distinctly conical shape. It is usually isolated or rises above other surrounding foothills, and is often, conical hills or mountains occur in different shapes and are not necessarily geometrically-shaped cones, some are more tower-shaped or have an asymmetric curve on one side. Typically, however, they have a base and smooth sides with a gradient of up to 30°. Such conical mountains are found in all volcanically-formed areas of the such as the Bohemian Central Uplands in the Czech Republic. The conical hill as a term first appeared in the German language, as Kegelberg, coined by Goethe. From their natural appearance these were mostly basaltic or phonolitic landforms in the shape of a mathematical cone, of course, this typical form has many variations, the round base may be elongated, the peak may take the form of a rocky crest or ridge. But most forms can be reduced at least to a conical or a cone-segment shape, flat ridges are then arranged in rows, out of which rise only a very isolated basalt or phonolite cones. In this work, which was published by Naumann and later revised by Bernhard Cotta, the Mittenberg, a conical hill in the centre between Tollenstein, Schönfeld and Neuhütte, rock, coarse splinters, with grey feldspar crystals. All stratovolcanoes and shield volcanoes have a tendency to form a cone at the surface, however, stratovolcanoes are able to form steeper sides whilst shield volcanoes only form very flat cones. The reason for this is that stratovolcanoes are composed largely of solid, eruptive material, over the course of time, after several eruptions, a cone of debris forms from the eruptive material. The natural conical shape so formed is simply a result of the fact that the amount of ejected material decreases with the distance from the crater. The layer of debris deposited is greater near the volcano than further away, the slope gradient of the resulting volcano is dependent both on the angle of repose as well as the speed at which the volcano is weathered. The angle of repose is, in turn, dependent on the composition of the lava, its viscosity and rate of solidification, many volcanoes tend to produce subsidiary craters or adventive cones. These are new openings formed on the sides of the volcano through which new material is ejected sometimes only on one side, as a result, these mountains lose their ideal conical shape. The formation of an almost perfect conical mountain or hill is only possible where there is a stable, many volcanoes are therefore only conical from one direction of view, from other angles they appear to have an irregular shape or bulges. Conical hills may form in tropical karst regions, such terrain being known as kegelkarst, a typical example of non-volcanic conical hills are the Chocolate Hills in Bohol on the Philippines. In almost all regions of the world, conical peaks may be formed by erosion processes. Often they arise through the formation of ordinary riverine meanders, but they can also result from the action of an entrenched river that has cut deeply into a plateau

19.
Swabian Jura
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The Swabian Jura, sometimes also named Swabian Alps in English, is a mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, extending 220 km from southwest to northeast and 40 to 70 km in width. It is named after the region of Swabia, the Swabian Jura occupies the region bounded by the Danube in the southeast and the upper Neckar in the northwest. In the southwest it rises to the mountains of the Black Forest. The highest mountain of the region is the Lemberg, the areas profile resembles a high plateau, which slowly falls away to the southeast. The northwestern edge is an escarpment, while the top is flat or gently rolling. In economic and cultural terms, the Swabian Jura includes regions just around the mountain range and it is a popular recreation area. The geology of the Swabian Jura is mostly limestone, which formed the seabed during the Jurassic period, the sea receded 50 million years ago. Three layers of different limestones are stacked over each other to form the range, Black Jurassic, Brown Jurassic, White Jurassic may be as pure as 99% calcium carbonate. Since limestone is soluble in water, rain seeps through cracks everywhere, thus there are hardly any rivers, lakes or other forms of surface water on the plateau. In some places, former volcanic activity has left traces, such as maars, in the west, the Zollerngraben sometimes causes mild earthquakes. The Nördlinger Ries is a meteorite crater. Tertiary relicts can be found at the part of Swabian Jura. Famous locations are known in the Ulm area, constant rain and other weather influences are slowly dissolving the entire range. Each year, it recedes approximately 2 mm, some millions of years ago, the mountains reached as far as Stuttgart. In some places, the limestone was more resistant to decay, the omnipresent caves are great tourist spots, beautiful and not very crowded. Many different types can be found, from dry dripstone caves to caves that can only be entered by boat, sometimes the discharge of the water from subterranean rivers can be spectacular, too, e. g. the Blautopf, a source for a tributary of the Danube. Also because of the limestone, the Danube nearly disappears near Immendingen. Most of the water lost by the Danube resurfaces in the Aachtopf, the soil is not very fertile, the humus is often as thin as 10 cm

20.
Duchy of Swabia
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The Duchy of Swabia was one of the five stem duchies of the medieval German kingdom, and its dukes were thus among the most powerful magnates of Germany. Swabia takes its name from the tribe of the Suebi, dwelling in the angle formed by the Rhine and the Danube, they were joined by other tribes, and were called Alamanni, until about the 11th century, when the form Swabia began to prevail. The duchy was proclaimed by Burchard II in 917, Burchard had allied himself with king Conrad I and defeated his rivals for the rule of Alemannia in a battle at Wahlwies in 915. The most notable family to hold Swabia were the Hohenstaufen, who held it, with a brief interruption, for much of this period, the Hohenstaufen were also Holy Roman Emperors. The duchy persisted until 1268, ending with the execution of Conradin, Rudolph I of Germany in 1273 attempted to revive the title of duke of Swabia, bestowing it on his youngest son, the later Rudolf II, who passed it to his son John Parricida. John died without an heir, in 1312 or 1313, marking the end of the revived title, the Margraviate of Baden detached itself from the duchy in the 12th century. In 496 the Alamanni were defeated by King Clovis I, brought under Francia, in the 7th century the people were converted to Christianity, bishoprics were founded at Augsburg and Konstanz, and in the 8th century abbeys at Reichenau Island and Saint Gall. At this time the duchy, which was divided into gaus or counties and it was bounded by the Rhine, Lake Constance, the Lech River and the Duchy of Franconia. During the later and weaker years of the Carolingian Empire the counts became almost independent, the chief family in Alamannia was that of the counts of Raetia Curiensis, who were sometimes called margraves and sometimes, as in the case of Conrad II and Rudolf, dukes. Finally, Burchard I, was called duke of the Alaminnia and he was killed in 911, for which two counts palatine, Bertold and Erchanger, were accused of treason and put to death by order of the German king Conrad I. In 917, Burchard II, son of Burchard I and count in Raetia Curiensis, took the title of duke, and was recognized as such by King Henry I, the Fowler in 919. In the Battle at Winterthur in 919, Burchard defended the Thurgau against the claims of Rudolf II of Burgundy, Rudolf had attempted to expand his territory by capitalising on the feud between the Ahalolfing and Burcharding dynasties. He occupied the palace at Zürich and marched into the Thurgau from there and he was defeated by Burchard near Winterthur and was forced to abandon Zürich, retreating beyond the Reuss. Burchards position was virtually independent, and when he died in 926 he was succeeded by Hermann, a Franconian noble, liudolf revolted, and was deposed, and other dukes followed in quick succession. Burchard III, son of Burchard II, ruled from 954 to 973, when he was succeeded by Liudolfs son, Otto, afterwards duke of Bavaria, to 982, and Conrad I, a relative of Duke Hermann I, until 997. Hermann II, possibly a son of Conrad, succeeded, and, during these years the Swabians were loyal to the kings of the Saxon house, probably owing to the influence of the bishops. Hermann III had no children, and the passed to Ernest II, son of his eldest sister Gisela and Ernest I. In 1045 Henry, who had become German king as Henry III, granted Alamannia to Otto, grandson of the emperor Otto II and count palatine of the Rhine, and, in 1048, to Otto III, count of Schweinfurt

21.
Carolingian Empire
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The Carolingian Empire was a large empire in western and central Europe during the early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as kings of the Franks since 751 and as kings of the Lombards of Italy from 774. In 800, the Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned emperor in Rome by Pope Leo III in an effort to revive the Roman Empire in the west during a vacancy in the throne of the eastern Roman Empire. The unity of the empire and the right of the Carolingians continued to be acknowledged. In 884, Charles the Fat reunited all the kingdoms for the last time, but he died in 888 and the empire immediately split up. With the only remaining male of the dynasty a child, the nobility elected regional kings from outside the dynasty or, in the case of the eastern kingdom. The size of the empire at its inception was around 1,112,000 square kilometres, in southern Italy, the Carolingians claims to authority were disputed by the Byzantines and the vestiges of the Lombard kingdom in the Principality of Benevento. Use of the term Carolingian Empire is a modern convention, the language of official acts in the empire was Latin. The empire was referred to variously as universum regnum, Romanorum sive Francorum imperium, Romanum imperium or even imperium christianum. Only the remaining Saxon realms, which he conquered, Lombardy. Further, Martel cemented his place in history with his defense of Christian Europe against a Muslim army at the Battle of Tours in 732, the Iberian Saracens had incorporated Berber lighthorse cavalry with the heavy Arab cavalry to create a formidable army that had almost never been defeated. Christian European forces, meanwhile, lacked the powerful tool of the stirrup, in this victory, Charles earned the surname Martel. Edward Gibbon, the historian of Rome and its aftermath, called Charles Martel the paramount prince of his age, Pepin III accepted the nomination as king by Pope Zachary in about 751. Charlemagnes rule began in 768 at Pepins death and he proceeded to take control over the kingdom following his brother Carlomans death, as the two brothers co-inherited their fathers kingdom. Charlemagne was crowned Roman Emperor in the year 800, the Carolingian Empire during the reign of Charlemagne covered most of Western Europe, as the Roman Empire once had. Prior to the death of Charlemagne, the Empire was divided among members of the Carolingian dynasty. These included King Charles the Younger, son of Charlemagne, who received Neustria, King Louis the Pious, who received Aquitaine, and King Pepin, Pepin died with an illegitimate son, Bernard, in 810, and Charles died without heirs in 811. Although Bernard succeeded Pepin as King of Italy, Louis was made co-Emperor in 813, Louis the Pious often had to struggle to maintain control of the Empire

22.
Eguisheim
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Eguisheim is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. Eguisheim produces Alsace wine of high quality, in May 2013 it was voted the «Village préféré des Français», an annual distinction that passes from town to town throughout France. Human presence in the area as early as the Paleolithic age is testified by archaeological excavations, in early historic times it was inhabited by the Gaul tribe of the Senones, the Romans conquered the village and developed here the cultivation of wine. In the early Middle Ages, the Dukes of Alsace built here a castle around which the current settlement developed, the commune was the alleged birthplace of Pope Leo IX in June 1002. The village centre receives many tourists, as the Alsace Wine Route passes the village, the village is also a member of the Les Plus Beaux Villages de France association. Leo IX,1002 -1054, pope of the Catholic Church from 12 February 1049 to his death in 1054

23.
Pope Leo IX
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Pope Leo IX, born Bruno of Egisheim-Dagsburg, was Pope from 12 February 1049 to his death in 1054. He was a German aristocrat and a ruler of central Italy while holding the papacy. He is regarded as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, Leo IX is widely considered the most historically significant German Pope of the Middle Ages. His citing of the Donation of Constantine in a letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople brought about the Great Schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches and he was born to Count Hugh and Heilwig and was a native of Eguisheim, Upper Alsace. His family was of rank, and his father, Count Hugh, was a cousin of Emperor Conrad II. He was educated at Toul, where he became canon and, in 1026. In the latter capacity he rendered important political services to his relative Conrad II and he became widely known as an earnest and reforming ecclesiastic by the zeal he showed in spreading the rule of the order of Cluny. On the death of Pope Damasus II in 1048, Bruno was selected as his successor by an assembly at Worms in December, both the Emperor and the Roman delegates concurred. Leo IX favored traditional morality in his reformation of the Catholic Church, One of his first public acts was to hold the well-known Easter synod of 1049, at which celibacy of the clergy was required anew. Also, the Easter synod was where the Pope at least succeeded in making clear his own convictions against every kind of simony. The greater part of the year that followed was occupied in one of those progresses through Italy, Germany, after presiding over a synod at Pavia, he joined Henry III in Saxony and accompanied him to Cologne and Aachen. He also summoned a meeting of the clergy in Reims in which several important reforming decrees were passed. At Mainz he held a council at which the Italian and French as well as the German clergy were represented, here too, simony and the marriage of the clergy were the principal matters dealt with. After his return to Rome he held another Easter synod on 29 April 1050 and it was occupied largely with the controversy about the teachings of Berengar of Tours. In 1052 he joined the Emperor at Pressburg and vainly sought to secure the submission of the Hungarians, at Regensburg, Bamberg and Worms, the papal presence was celebrated with various ecclesiastical solemnities. After a fourth Easter synod in 1053, Leo IX set out against the Normans in the south with an army of Italians, as fervent Christians the Normans were reluctant to fight their spiritual leader and tried to sue for peace but the Swabians mocked them – battle was inevitable. Leo IX led the army himself, but his forces suffered defeat at the Battle of Civitate on 15 June 1053. Nonetheless, on going out from the city to meet the enemy he was received with every token of submission, pleas for forgiveness and oaths of fidelity

24.
Salian dynasty
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The Salian dynasty, was a dynasty in the High Middle Ages. He was elected German King in 1024 and crowned Holy Roman Emperor on 26 March 1027. The four Salian kings of the dynasty—Conrad II, Henry III, Henry IV, and Henry V—ruled the Holy Roman Empire from 1027 to 1125 and they achieved the development of a permanent administrative system based on a class of public officials answerable to the crown. Werner of Worms and his son Duke Conrad the Red of Lorraine, Conrad the Red married Liutgarde, a daughter of Emperor Otto I. Their son Otto I, Duke of Carinthia ruled Carinthia from 978 to 1004, Duke Otto had three sons, Bruno, who became Pope Gregory V, Conrad, and Henry, count of Speyer. Henry was the father of the first Salian Emperor Conrad II, Pope Leo IX also had family ties to the dynasty, since his grandfather Hugo III was the brother of Adelheid, the grandmother of Henry III. After the death of the last Saxon Emperor Henry II the first Salian regent Conrad II was elected by the majority of the Prince-electors and was crowned German king in Mainz on 8 September 1024. Early in 1026 Conrad went to Milan, where Ariberto, archbishop of Milan, when Rudolph III, King of Burgundy died 1032, Conrad II also claimed this kingship on the basis of an inheritance Henry II had extorted from the former in 1006. Despite some opposition, the Burgundian and Provençal nobles paid homage to Conrad in Zürich in 1034 and this Kingdom of Burgundy would become known as the Kingdom of Arles under Conrads successors. Already in 1028 Conrad II had his son Henry III elected and anointed king of Germany, henrys tenure led to an overstatement of previously unknown sacral kingship. So during this reign Speyer Cathedral was expanded to be the largest church in Western Christendom, henrys conception of a legitimate power of royal disposition in the duchies was successful against the dukes, and thus secured royal control. However, in Lorraine, this led to years of conflict, but also in southern Germany a powerful opposition group was formed in the years 1052–1055. 1046 Henry ended the schism, freed the Papacy from dependence on the Roman nobility. His early death in 1056 was long regarded as a disaster for the Empire, the early Salians owed much of their success to their alliance with the Church, a policy begun by Otto I, which gave them the material support they needed to subdue rebellious dukes. In time, however, the Church came to regret this close relationship, the pope also attacked the concept of monarchy by divine right and gained the support of significant elements of the German nobility interested in limiting imperial absolutism. More important, the pope forbade ecclesiastical officials under pain of excommunication to support Henry as they had so freely done in the past, in the end, Henry IV journeyed to Canossa in northern Italy in 1077 to do penance and to receive absolution from the pope. However, he resumed the practice of lay investiture and arranged the election of an antipope in 1080, the monarchs struggle with the papacy resulted in a war that ravaged through the Holy Roman Empire from 1077 until the Concordat of Worms in 1122. The reign of the last ruler of the Salian dynasty Henry V coincided with the phase of the great Investiture Controversy

25.
Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor
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Henry IV ascended to King of the Germans in 1056. From 1084 until his abdication in 1105, he was also referred to as the King of the Romans. He was the emperor of the Salian dynasty and one of the most powerful. His reign was marked by the Investiture Controversy with the Papacy, several civil wars over his throne took place in both Italy and Germany. He died of illness, soon after defeating his sons army near Visé, in Lorraine, in 1056 at Aachen, Henry IV was enthroned as the King of the Germans by Pope Victor II, while his mother, Agnes of Poitou, became regent. In 1062 the young king was kidnapped as a result of the Coup of Kaiserswerth, Agnes retired to a convent, and the government was placed in the hands of Anno. His first action was to back Pope Alexander II against the antipope Honorius II, the education and training of Henry were supervised by Anno, who was called his magister, while Adalbert of Hamburg, archbishop of Bremen, was styled Henrys patronus. Henrys education seems to have been neglected, and his willful, the malleable Adalbert of Hamburg soon became the confidante of the ruthless Henry. Eventually, during an absence of Anno from Germany, Henry managed to control of his civil duties. Henrys entire reign was marked by apparent efforts to consolidate Imperial power, in reality, however, he carefully worked to maintain the loyalty of the nobility and the support of the pope. In 1066, he expelled from the Crown Council Adalbert of Hamburg, Henry also adopted urgent military measures against the Slav pagans, who had recently invaded Germany and besieged Hamburg. In June 1066 Henry married Bertha of Savoy/Turin, daughter of Otto, Count of Savoy, in the same year, at the request of the Pope, he assembled an army to fight the Italo-Normans of southern Italy. Henrys troops had reached Augsburg when he received news that Godfrey of Tuscany, husband of the powerful Matilda of Canossa, in 1068, driven by his impetuous character and his infidelities, Henry attempted to divorce Bertha. Henry obeyed and his wife returned to Court, Henry believed that the Papal opposition was less about his marriage than about overthrowing lay power within the Empire, in favour of an ecclesiastical hierarchy. In the late 1060s, Henry demonstrated his determination to reduce any opposition and he led expeditions against the Lutici and the margrave of a district east of Saxony, soon afterwards he had to quell the rebellions of Rudolf of Swabia and Berthold of Carinthia. Much more serious was Henrys struggle with Otto of Nordheim, duke of Bavaria and it was decided that a trial by combat should take place at Goslar, but when Ottos demand for safe conduct to and from the place of meeting was refused, he declined to appear. He was declared deposed in Bavaria, and his Saxon estates were plundered, however, he obtained sufficient support to carry on a struggle with the king in Saxony and Thuringia until 1071, when he submitted at Halberstadt. Henry aroused the hostility of the Thuringians by supporting Siegfried, archbishop of Mainz, in his efforts to exact tithes from them

26.
Agnes of Waiblingen
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Agnes of Waiblingen, also known as Agnes of Germany, Agnes of Poitou and Agnes of Saarbrücken, was a member of the Salian imperial family. Through her first marriage, she was a Duchess consort of Swabia, through her second marriage and she was the daughter of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, and Bertha of Savoy. Her maternal grandparents were Otto, Count of Savoy, and Adelaide of Susa and her brother was Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor. In 1079, aged seven, Agnes was betrothed to Frederick, the couple married in 1086, when Agnes was fourteen. According to a legend, a veil lost by Agnes and found by Leopold years later while hunting was the instigation for him to found the Klosterneuburg Monastery, C.1133 William V of Montferrat. Their children formed an important Crusading dynasty, gertrude, married Vladislav II of Bohemia According to the Continuation of the Chronicles of Klosterneuburg, there may have been up to seven other children stillborn or who died in infancy. In 1125, Agnes brother, Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, died childless, leaving Agnes and her children as heirs to the Salian dynastys immense allodial estates, including Waiblingen. In 1127, Agnes eldest surviving son, Konrad III, was elected as the rival King of Germany by those opposed to the Saxon partys Lothar III, when Lothar died in 1137, Konrad was elected to the position. Brigitte Vacha & Walter Pohl, Die Welt der Babenberger, Schleier, Kreuz und Schwert, ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Line 45-24 I. S. Robsinson, Henry IV of Germany, 1056-1106, H. Decker-Hauff, Die Zeit der Staufer, vol

27.
Rudolf of Rheinfelden
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Rudolf of Rheinfelden was Duke of Swabia from 1057 to 1079. After a series of armed conflicts, Rudolf succumbed to his injuries after his forces defeated Henrys in the Battle on the Elster, Rudolf was the son of the Swabian count Kuno of Rheinfelden. He was first mentioned in a 1048 deed issued by the Salian emperor Henry III as a count in the Swabian Sisgau on the High Rhine, an estate then held by the Prince-Bishopric of Basel. Rudolfs family had large possessions up to Sankt Blasien Abbey in the Black Forest and he probably was related to King Rudolph II of Burgundy, the Dukes of Lorraine and the Ottonian dynasty. When Duke Otto III of Swabia died without heirs in 1057, Empress Agnes, consort of late Henry III, appointed him Swabian duke. Rudolf demanded, and received, Matildas hand in marriage, in 1061 Berthold received the Duchy of Carinthia instead. When Matilda died in 1060, Rudolf subsequently, in 1066, married Adelaide of Savoy, when Adelaides sister Bertha of Savoy married Henry IV in 1066, Rudolf became brother-in-law to the king twice over. During Agnes regency, the Princes of the Holy Roman Empire could further strengthen their position against the Imperial authority, in the 1062 Coup of Kaiserswerth, several princes led by Archbishop Anno II of Cologne even abducted the minor king to enforce the surrender of the Imperial Regalia. When Henry came of age in 1065, he continued the policies of his father against the reluctant Saxon nobility, however, after the joint victory, Rudolf became estranged to the king and rumours occurred that he was involved in adversarial conspiracies. Empress Agnes repeatedly had to arbitrate between the parties, Pope Gregory agreed to meet with the princes at Augsburg in February 1077. Already in January, Henry hastened to see the pope on his way to the Empire from Rome, by doing penance Henry managed to achieve absolution, buying time at the price of his reputation and secular authority. The rebels continued with their plans, Rudolf was elected anti-king on 15 March 1077 at the Kaiserpfalz in Forchheim, where already Louis the Child and Conrad I of Germany had been crowned. The first anti-king in the history of the Empire, he promised to respect the investiture solely according to law as well as the concept of the elective monarchy. Further claims raised by the princes were rejected as simony by the attendant papal legates. Rudolf was supported by the Archbishops of Mainz, Salzburg and Magdeburg as well as by the Dukes of Carinthia and Bavaria, the Saxon rebel Otto of Nordheim and possibly also by Duke Magnus of Saxony. He proceeded to Mainz, where on 25 May he was crowned by Archbishop Siegfried I, but soon after was forced to flee to Saxony and this presented a problem, since the Saxon duchy was cut off from his Swabian homelands by the kings Salian territory. Moreover, the pope avoided taking sides and adopted a waiting attitude, Rudolf was accused of greed, treason and usurpation by Henrys liensmen, while his own support crumbled. Rudolf gave Swabia to his son Berthold and attempted to rectify his situation by stalking Henrys forces near Würzburg, meanwhile, he was deprived of Swabia by the Hoftag diet at Ulm in May, and the king gave the duchy to Frederick of Büren, the first Hohenstaufen ruler

28.
House of Welf
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The House of Welf was a European dynasty that has included many German and British monarchs from the 11th to 20th century and Emperor Ivan VI of Russia in the 18th century. The House of Welf is the branch of the House of Este. The first member was Welf IV, he inherited the property of the Elder House of Welf when his maternal uncle Welf III, Duke of Carinthia and Verona, the last male Welf of the Elder House, died in 1055. Welf IV was the son of Welf IIIs sister Kunigunde of Altdorf and her husband Albert Azzo II of Este, in 1070, Welf IV became duke of Bavaria. Since the Welf dynasty sided with the Pope in this controversy, Henry the Black, duke of Bavaria from 1120–1126, was the first of the three dukes of the Welf dynasty called Henry. His wife Wulfhild was the heiress of the house of Billung, possessing the territory around Lüneburg in Lower Saxony and their son, Henry the Proud was the son-in-law and heir of Emperor Lothair of Supplinburg and became also duke of Saxony on Lothairs death. Lothair left his territory around Brunswick, inherited from his mother of the Brunonen family and her husband Henry the Proud became then the favoured candidate in the imperial election against Conrad III of the Hohenstaufen. But Henry lost the election, as the other princes feared his power and temperament, Henry the Lion recovered his fathers two duchies, Saxony in 1142, Bavaria in 1156 and thus ruled vast parts of Germany. In 1168 he married Matilda, the daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and sister of Richard Lionheart, gaining ever more influence. His first cousin, Emperor Frederick I of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, tried to get along with him, Henry made his peace with the Hohenstaufen Emperor in 1185, and returned to his much diminished lands around Brunswick without recovering his two duchies. Bavaria had been given to Otto I Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria, Henry died at Brunswick in 1195. Henrys son Otto of Brunswick was elected King of the Romans and he incurred the wrath of Pope Innocent III and was excommunicated in 1215. Otto was forced to abdicate the throne by the Hohenstaufen Frederick II. He was the only Welf to become emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Henry the Lions grandson Otto the Child became duke of a part of Saxony in 1235, the new Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and died there in 1252. The subsequent history of the dukedom and its subordinate principalities was characterized by divisions and reunifications. The subordinate states that were created, and which had the legal status of principalities within the duchy were generally named after the residences of their rulers. The estates of the different dynastic lines could be inherited by a line when a family died out. The individual subordinate principalities continued to exist until the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, following the Congress of Vienna in 1814/15, the territories became part of the Kingdom of Hanover and the Duchy of Brunswick

29.
Bishop of Strasbourg
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Son of Joachim III Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg. Elected by the majority Protestant canons of Strasbourg in 1592, son of Charles III, Duke of Lorraine. Elected by the minority Catholic canons of Strasbourg in 1592, accepted as Bishop by both parties in 1604 upon Johann Georgs resignation. Also Bishop of Metz from 1578

30.
Frederick II, Duke of Swabia
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Frederick II, called the One-Eyed, was Duke of Swabia from 1105 until his death, the second from the Hohenstaufen dynasty. His younger brother Conrad was elected King of the Romans in 1138, Frederick II was the eldest son of Duke Frederick I of Swabia and his wife Agnes of Waiblingen, a daughter of the Salian emperor Henry IV. He succeeded his father in 1105 and together with his brother Conrad continued the extension and consolidation of the Hohenstaufen estates, Frederick had numerous castles erected along the Rhine river and in the Alsace region. The Hohenstaufen brothers supported King Henry V in the conflict with his father Emperor Henry IV, in 1110 he and Henry V embarked on an expedition to Italy, where in Rome Henry enforced his coronation by Pope Paschal II. In turn, the emperor appointed Conrad Duke of Franconia and both brothers German regents when he left for his second Italian campaign in 1116. On the other hand, the rise of the Hohenstaufens began to upset rivalling princes like Archbishop Adalbert of Mainz, about 1120 Frederick married Judith, a daughter of Duke Henry IX of Bavaria and member of the powerful House of Welf. Their first son Frederick was born in 1122, upon the death of Emperor Henry V in 1125, the Salian dynasty became extinct. Frederick II, Henrys nephew, stood for election as King of the Romans with the support of his younger brother Conrad, however, he lost in the tumultuous round of elections, led by Archbishop Adalbert of Mainz, to the Saxon duke Lothair II. Frederick at first rendered homage to the new king, however, he refused the feudal oath, at the 1125 Hoftag diet in Regensburg, the king officially requested the surrender of the Salian possessions. However, an attack by Welf forces on the Swabian core territory failed, Frederick relieved the siege and moreover gained the support from his brother Conrad, who had just returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. During the fighting, Frederick lost an eye, whereafter he was no longer eligible as German king, in December 1127 Conrad declared himself King of the Romans, while the next year Duke Frederick II occupied the Salian city of Speyer. The attempt of Duke Henry X of Bavaria to capture his brother-in-law Frederick during the negotiations failed, however, afterwards the supporters of Lothair won a number of victories both in Germany and in Italy. Speyer, Nuremberg and Ulm were captured, moreover Fredericks consort Judith of Bavaria died in 1130 and his second wife, Agnes of Saarbrücken, was a niece of his old enemy Adalbert of Mainz, Frederick married her about 1132. After Lothair was crowned emperor in 1133, Frederick saw himself stuck between the Saxon and Bavarian forces and he eventually submitted to him in the spring of 1135 at Bamberg. Both were finally reconciled and Emperor Lothair renounced further attacks against the Hohenstaufens, after Lothairs death in 1137 and the following election of Conrad as King of the Romans, Frederick supported his brother in the struggle with the Welfs. Duke Frederick II died in 1147 at Alzey and he was buried at the Benedictine abbey of Walburg in Alsace. His son Frederick succeeded him as Swabian duke and was elected German king in 1152

31.
Conrad III of Germany
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Conrad III was the first King of Germany of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. He was the son of Duke Frederick I of Swabia and Agnes, the origin of the House of Hohenstaufen in the Duchy of Swabia has not been conclusively established. Conrads father took advantage of the conflict between King Henry IV of Germany and the Swabian duke Rudolf of Rheinfelden during the Investiture Controversy and he died in 1105, leaving two sons, Conrad and his elder brother Frederick II, who inherited the Swabian ducal title. Their mother entered into a marriage with Babenberg margrave Leopold III of Austria. In 1105 Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor since 1084, was overthrown by his son Henry V, Emperor since 1111, Henry V preparing for his second campaign to Italy upon the death of Margravine Matilda of Tuscany, in 1116 appointed Conrad a Duke of Franconia. Conrad was marked out to act as regent for Germany, together with his elder brother, at the death of Henry V in 1125, Conrad unsuccessfully supported Frederick II for the kingship of Germany. Frederick was placed under a ban and Conrad was deprived of Franconia, with the support of the imperial cities, Swabia, and the Duchy of Austria, Conrad was elected anti-king at Nuremberg in December 1127. Conrad quickly crossed the Alps to be crowned King of Italy by Anselm V, Archbishop of Milan. Over the next two years, he failed to achieve anything in Italy, however, and returned to Germany in 1130, after Nuremberg and Speyer, two strong cities in his support, fell to Lothair in 1129. Conrad continued in Lothairs opposition, but he and Frederick were forced to acknowledge Lothair as emperor in 1135, after this they were pardoned and could take again possession of their lands. After Lothairs death, Conrad was elected king at Coblenz on 7 March 1138, Conrad was crowned at Aachen six days later and was acknowledged in Bamberg by several princes of southern Germany. Henry, however, retained the loyalty of his subjects, the civil war that broke out is considered the first act of the struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines, which later extended southwards to Italy. After Henrys death, the war was continued by his son Henry the Lion, supported by the Saxons, Conrad, after a long siege, defeated the latter at Weinsberg in December 1140, and in May 1142 a peace agreement was reached in Frankfurt. In the same year, Conrad entered Bohemia to reinstate his brother-in-law Vladislav II as prince, the attempt to do the same with another brother-in-law, the Polish prince Ladislaus the Exile, failed. Bavaria, Saxony, and the regions of Germany were in revolt. In 1146, Conrad heard Bernard of Clairvaux preach the Second Crusade at Speyer, before leaving, he had the nobles elect and crown his son Henry Berengar king. The succession secured in the event of his death, Conrad set out and his army of 20,000 men went overland, via Hungary, causing disruptions in the Byzantine territories through which they passed. They arrived at Constantinople by September 1147, ahead of the French army, rather than taking the coastal road around Anatolia through Christian-held territory, by which he sent most of his noncombatants, Conrad took his army across Anatolia

32.
Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor
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Henry V was King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor, the fourth and last ruler of the Salian dynasty. Henrys reign coincided with the phase of the great Investiture Controversy. By the settlement of the Concordat of Worms, he surrendered to the demands of the generation of Gregorian reformers. Henrys parents were Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, and Bertha of Savoy, on 6 January 1099, his father had him crowned King of Germany at Aachen in place of his older brother, the rebel Conrad. Despite the initial setbacks of the rebels, Henry IV was forced to abdicate, order was soon restored in Germany, the citizens of Cologne were punished with a fine, and an expedition against Robert II, Count of Flanders, brought this rebel to his knees. In 1107, Henry undertook a campaign to restore Borivoi II in Bohemia, Henry summoned Svatopluk the Lion, who had captured Duke Borivoi. Borivoi was released at the command and made godfather to Svatopluks new son. Nevertheless, on Svatopluks return to Bohemia, he assumed the throne, in 1108, Henry went to war with Coloman of Hungary on behalf of Prince Álmos. An attack by Boleslaus III of Poland and Borivoi on Svatopluk forced Henry to give up his campaign, in 1110, he succeeded in securing the dukedom of Bohemia for Ladislaus I. Henrys primary concern during his reign was settling the Investiture Controversy, the papal party who had supported Henry in his resistance to his father hoped he would assent to the papal decrees, which had been renewed by Paschal II at the synod of Guastalla in 1106. The king, however, continued to invest the bishops, after some hesitation, Paschal preferred France to Germany, and, after holding a council at Troyes, renewed his prohibition of lay investiture. The matter slumbered until 1110, when, negotiations between king and pope having failed, Paschal renewed his decrees and Henry invaded Italy with a large army. The strength of his forces helped him to secure recognition in Lombardy. Having entered Rome and sworn the usual oaths, the king presented himself at St. Peters Basilica on 12 February 1111 for his coronation, Paschal and sixteen cardinals were seized by Henrys soldiers. In the general disorder that followed, an attempt to liberate the pontiff was thwarted in a struggle during which the king was wounded. A Norman army sent by Prince Robert I of Capua to rescue the papists was turned back by the imperialist count of Tusculum, Henry left Rome carrying the pope with him. Paschals failure to obtain assistance drew from him a confirmation of the right of investiture. In 1112, Lothair of Supplinburg, Duke of Saxony, rose in arms against Henry, on 7 January 1114 at Mainz, Henry married Matilda, the daughter of Henry I of England

33.
Duchy of Saxony
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Upon the 843 Treaty of Verdun, Saxony was one of the five German stem duchies of East Francia, Duke Henry the Fowler was elected German king in 919. In 1296 the remaining lands were divided between the Ascanian dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg and Saxe-Wittenberg, the obtaining the title of Electors of Saxony by the Golden Bull of 1356. In the late 12th century, Duke Henry the Lion also occupied the adjacent area of Mecklenburg, more probably, Saxon tribes from Land Hadeln under the leadership of legendary Hengist and Horsa in the late days of the Roman Empire had invaded Britannia. In 747 their rebellious brother Grifo allied with Saxon tribes and temporarily conquered the duchy of Bavaria. Pepin, Frankish king from 750, again invaded Saxony and subdued several Westphalian tribes until 758, in 772 Pepins son Charlemagne started the final conquest of the Saxon lands. Widukind finally had to pledge allegiance in 785, having himself baptised, Saxon uprisings continued until 804, when the whole stem duchy had been incorporated into the Carolingian Empire. Afterwards, Saxony was ruled by Carolingian officials, e. g, among the installed dukes were already nobles of Saxon descent, like Walas successor Count Ekbert, husband of Saint Ida of Herzfeld, a close relative of Charlemagne. Subdued only a few decades earlier, the Saxons rose to one of the tribes in East Francia, it is however uncertain. Liudolfs elder son Bruno, progenitor of the Brunswick cadet branch of the Brunonen, was killed in a battle with invading Vikings under Godfrid in 880. He was succeeded by his younger brother Otto the Illustrious, mentioned as dux in the annals of Hersfeld Abbey. His position was enough to wed Hedwiga of Babenberg, daughter of mighty Duke Henry of Franconia. One year later, Ottos son Henry the Fowler succeeded his father as Duke of Saxony, Henrys eastern campaigns to Brandenburg and Meissen, the establishment of Saxon marches as well as the surrender of Duke Wenceslaus of Bohemia marked the beginning of the German eastward expansion. Upon Henrys death in 936 at Memleben, his son Otto I succeeded him, according to Widukind, he was crowned king at Aachen Cathedral, with the other German dukes Gilbert of Lorraine, Eberhard of Franconia, Arnulf of Bavaria and Herman of Swabia paying homage to him. He thereby disregarded the claims of Hermans elder brother Wichmann, who in turn joined the revolt by Ottos half-brother Thankmar. In 953 and again in 961 King Otto elevated Hermann Billung to a viceduke in Saxony,973, Otto I dies in Memleben, Otto II becomes Emperor. Hermann Billung dies in Quedlinburg, Bernhard I Billung becomes duke of Saxony,1002, The death of Otto III marks the end of the Saxon emperors. 1011, Duke Bernhard I Billung dies, his son Bernhard II becomes duke,1042, Ordulf Billung, son of Bernhard II, marries Wulfhild, the half-sister of King Magnus of Denmark and Norway. Danes and Saxons fight against the Wends,1059, Ordulf Billung becomes Duke after the death of his father

34.
Lothair II, Holy Roman Emperor
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Lothair II or Lothair III, known as Lothair of Supplinburg, was Holy Roman Emperor from 1133 until his death. He was appointed Duke of Saxony in 1106 and elected King of Germany in 1125 before being crowned emperor in Rome. The son of the Saxon count Gebhard of Supplinburg, his reign was troubled by the constant intriguing of the Hohenstaufens, Duke Frederick II of Swabia and he died while returning from a successful campaign against the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. Little is known of Lothairs youth and his father joined the Saxon Rebellion against the ruling Salian dynasty and died on 9 June 1075 in the Battle of Langensalza, fighting troops loyal to Emperor Henry IV. Shortly thereafter, Lothair was born posthumously at Unterlüß, in 1100 he married Richenza, daughter of Count Henry of Northeim and Gertrude of Brunswick, heiress of the Brunonids. He backed the emperors son Henry V during the disempowerment of his father Henry IV and he acted autonomously, vesting Count Adolf of Schauenburg with Holstein in 1110, was temporarily deposed in 1112 but reinstated after he tactically submitted himself to the rule of Henry V. In 1115 however, he joined the rebellious Saxon forces which defeated those of the Emperor in the Battle of Welfesholz. When in 1123 Henry V vested Count Wiprecht of Groitzsch with the Margraviate of Meissen, Lothair enforced the appointment of Conrad of Wettin and ceded the March of Lusatia to Count Albert the Bear. After the death of Emperor Henry V in 1125, Lothair was viewed by the Imperial chancellor, as an extensive landowner all over Saxony, he brought power to the table, but he was old and had no male issue, potentially making him malleable for the nobility. He was therefore elected King of the Romans after a power struggle with Duke Frederick II, Duke of Swabia. His election was notable in that it marked a departure from the concept of hereditary succession, a campaign undertaken in the same year against Bohemia ended in defeat, a weak start by Lothair. Among those captured by the Bohemians was Albert of Ascania, future Margrave of Brandenburg, a civil war between Fredericks dynasty and Lothairs ended with Fredericks submission in 1134. With both Saxon and Bavarian origins, the Süpplingenburg dynasty was an opponent of the Salian dynasty. During his reign, a dispute broke out between the House of Welf and the Hohenstaufens, the latter were led by Frederick II, Duke of Swabia. Frederick II was placed under the Imperial ban, Conrad was deprived of Franconia, the Staufens, with the support of their own lands, many Imperial Free Cities, the Duchy of Austria, and the Duchy of Swabia, got Duke Conrad elected as anti-king Conrad III. In 1128 Conrad went to Italy, to be crowned King of Italy by Anselm V, Lothair took advantage of Conrads absence and weak position by attacking the Staufens in Germany. In 1129 he took two strong Staufen cities, Nuremberg and Speyer, Conrad failed to make anything of his visit to Italy, and returned in 1130 with nothing to show for it, which assured at least a partial victory for Lothair. In the double election of 1130, both sides campaigned for Lothairs support

35.
Hohenstaufen
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The Hohenstaufen, also called the Staufer or Staufen, were a dynasty of German kings during the Middle Ages. Besides Germany, they ruled the Kingdom of Sicily. In Italian historiography, they are known as the Svevi, since they were dukes of Swabia from 1079, three members of the dynasty—Frederick I, Henry VI and Frederick II—were crowned Holy Roman Emperor. The name Staufen derives from Stauf, meaning chalice, and was applied to conical hills in Swabia in the Middle Ages. The family derives its name from the castle which the first Swabian duke of the lineage built there in the half of the 11th century. Staufen castle was finally called Hohenstaufen by historians in the 19th century. The name of the dynasty followed, but in recent decades the trend in German historiography has been to prefer the name Staufer, the noble family first appeared in the late 10th century in the Swabian Riesgau region around the former Carolingian court of Nördlingen. A local count Frederick is mentioned as progenitor in a pedigree drawn up by Abbot Wibald of Stavelot at the behest of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1153. He held the office of a Swabian count palatine, his son Frederick of Buren married Hildegard of Egisheim-Dagsburg and their son Frederick I was appointed Duke of Swabia at Hohenstaufen Castle by the Salian king Henry IV of Germany in 1079. At the same time, Duke Frederick I was engaged to the kings approximately seventeen-year-old daughter, Fredericks brother Otto was elevated to the Strasbourg bishopric in 1082. Upon Fredericks death, he was succeeded by his son, Duke Frederick II, Frederick II remained a close ally of the Salians, he and his younger brother Conrad were named the kings representatives in Germany when the king was in Italy. Around 1120, Frederick II married Judith of Bavaria from the rival House of Welf, when the last male member of the Salian dynasty, Emperor Henry V, died without heirs in 1125, a controversy arose about the succession. A civil war between Fredericks dynasty and Lothairs ended with Fredericks submission in 1134, after Lothairs death in 1137, Fredericks brother Conrad was elected King as Conrad III. In 1147, Conrad heard Bernard of Clairvaux preach the Second Crusade at Speyer, conrads brother Duke Frederick II died in 1147, and was succeeded in Swabia by his son, Duke Frederick III. When King Conrad III died without heir in 1152, Frederick also succeeded him. As royal access to the resources of the church in Germany was much reduced and he was soon crowned emperor in Italy, but decades of warfare on the peninsula yielded scant results. The Papacy and the prosperous city-states of the Lombard League in northern Italy were traditional enemies, under the skilled leadership of Pope Alexander III, the alliance suffered many defeats but ultimately was able to deny the emperor a complete victory in Italy. During Fredericks long stays in Italy, the German princes became stronger, offers of reduced taxes and manorial duties enticed many Germans to settle in the east in the course of the Ostsiedlung

36.
Philip of Swabia
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Philip of Swabia was a prince of the House of Hohenstaufen and King of Germany from 1198 to 1208. In the long-time struggle for the German throne upon the death of Emperor Henry VI between the Hohenstaufen and Welf dynasties, he was the first German king to be assassinated. Philips great uncle Conrad III was the first scion of the Swabian Hohenstaufen dynasty to be elected King of the Romans in 1138, the newborn was probably named after Fredericks valued ally and confidant Archbishop Philip of Cologne. In 1190 or 1191 Philip was elected Prince-bishop of Würzburg, though without being consecrated and his brother Henry had expanded the Hohenstaufen domains by marrying Queen Constance of Sicily in 1186, suspiciously eyed by the Roman Curia. In his retinue in Italy was the Minnesinger Bernger von Horheim, on 26 December 1194, Queen Constance finally gave birth to a son, the later Emperor Frederick II. To secure his succession, his father Henry had the two-year-old elected King of the Romans before he prepared for the Crusade of 1197, in early 1195, Philip was made Duke of Tuscany and received the disputed Matildine lands. His rule there earned him the enmity of Pope Celestine III, in 1196 his brother Conrad died and he succeeded him as Duke of Swabia. His marriage to Irene took place in 1197 near Augsburg, Philip enjoyed his brothers confidence to a very great extent, and appears to have been designated as guardian of Henrys minor son Frederick II, in case of his fathers early death. In September 1197 he had set out to fetch Frederick from Apulia for his coronation as German king, while staying in Montefiascone, he heard of the emperors sudden death in Messina and returned at once to Germany. He appears to have desired to protect the interests of his nephew and to quell the disorder which arose on Henrys death, but was overtaken by events. The hostility to the kingship of a child was growing, nevertheless, he knew that he had to settle the conflict with Otto and his supporters. A first attempt to mediate by the Mainz archbishop Conrad of Wittelsbach in 1199 was rejected by the Welf, both sides strived for the coronation as Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Innocent III. The pope himself acted tactically, trying to wrest the affirmation of the sovereignty of his Papal States, the pope began to work energetically in favour of Otto, who beforehand had solemnly renounced any intentions to affiliate the Sicilian kingdom with the Holy Roman Empire. The festival was rendered in a poem by Walther von der Vogelweide in order to spread the reputation of King Philip as a capable ruler. Again in Magdeburg Cathedral, Philip celebrated the elevation of Saint Cunigunde of Luxembourg on 9 September 1201, also in 1201, Philip was visited by his cousin Boniface of Montferrat, the leader of the Fourth Crusade. Although Bonifaces exact reasons for meeting with Philip are unknown, while at Philips court he also met Alexius Angelus, the two succeeding years were still more unfavourable to Philip. The Přemyslid ruler Ottokar I, though he had received the hereditary Bohemian regality, another former ally, Landgrave Hermann of Thuringia, drove him from northern Germany, thus compelling him to seek by abject concessions, but without success, reconciliation with Innocent. Philip was soon joined by Archbishop Adolph of Cologne, though against the will of the Cologne citizens, by Duke Henry of Brabant and even by Ottos brother Count Palatine Henry V

37.
Conrad IV of Germany
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Conrad, a member of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, was the only son of Emperor Frederick II from his second marriage with Queen Isabella II of Jerusalem. He inherited the title of a King of Jerusalem upon the death of his mother in childbed, appointed Duke of Swabia in 1235, his father had him elected King of Germany and crowned King of Italy in 1237. After the emperor was deposed and died in 1250, he ruled as King of Sicily until his death and he was the second but only surviving son of Emperor Frederick II and Isabella II, the queen regnant of Jerusalem. Born in Andria, in the South Italian Kingdom of Sicily, his mother died giving birth to him. By his father, Conrad was the grandson of the Hohenstaufen emperor Henry VI and he lived in Southern Italy until 1235, when he first visited the Kingdom of Germany. When Emperor Frederick II deposed his eldest son, Conrads rebellious half-brother King Henry, however, the emperor was not able to have him elected King of the Romans until the 1237 Imperial Diet in Vienna. This title, though not acknowledged by Pope Gregory IX, presumed his future as a Holy Roman Emperor, Conrad intervened directly in German politics from around 1240. However, when Pope Innocent IV imposed a ban on Frederick in 1245 and declared Conrad deposed. Henry Raspe defeated Conrad in the battle of Nidda in August 1246 and he was succeeded as anti-king by William of Holland. Also in 1246, Conrad married Elisabeth of Bavaria, a daughter of Otto II Wittelsbach and they had a son Conradin, in 1252. In 1250 Conrad settled momentarily the situation in Germany by defeating William of Holland, when Frederick II died in the same year, he passed Sicily and Germany, as well as the title of Jerusalem, to Conrad, but the struggle with the pope continued. Having been defeated by William in 1251, Conrad decided to invade Italy, hoping to regain the rich dominions of his father, in January 1252 he invaded Apulia with a Venetian fleet and successfully managed to restrain Manfred and to exercise control of the country. In October 1253 his troops conquered Naples, Conrad was however not able to subdue the popes supporters, and the pope in turn offered Sicily to Edmund Crouchback, son of Henry III of England. Conrad was excommunicated in 1254 and died of malaria in the year at Lavello in Basilicata. Manfred first, and later Conrads son Conradin, continued the struggle with the Papacy, Conrads widow Elisabeth remarried to Meinhard II, Count of Tirol, who in 1286 became Duke of Carinthia. Conrads death in 1254 began the Interregnum, during which no ruler managed to gain undisputed control of Germany, the Interregnum ended in 1273, with the election of Rudolph of Habsburg as King of the Romans. He was related to other king of Germany

38.
Family tree of the German monarchs
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The following image is a family tree of every king, monarch, confederation president and emperor of Germany, from Charlemagne in 800 over Louis the German in 843 through to Wilhelm II in 1918. It shows how every single ruler of Germany was related to other by marriages. For ease of understanding the royal names and dates have been put in at the appropriate places. Only undisputed kings are included here, this excludes rulers whose claims were disputed such as the co-rulers Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall, until 911 the kings were known as Kings of East Francia. After that the title fluctuated between King of Germany and King of the Germans, from Henry IV on, the kings were German King, a reference to the claim on Rome, although this was not often ruled by them. The colors denotes the monarchs from the Houses of, Family trees of the German monarchs

39.
House of Habsburg
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The House of Habsburg, also called House of Hapsburg, or House of Austria, was one of the most influential royal houses of Europe. The throne of the Holy Roman Empire was continuously occupied by the Habsburgs between 1438 and 1740, from the sixteenth century, following the reign of Charles V, the dynasty was split between its Austrian and Spanish branches. Although they ruled distinct territories, they maintained close relations. The House takes its name from Habsburg Castle, a built in the 1020s in present-day Switzerland, in the canton of Aargau, by Count Radbot of Klettgau. His grandson Otto II was the first to take the name as his own. The House of Habsburg gathered dynastic momentum through the 11th, 12th, by 1276, Count Radbots seventh generation descendant Rudolph of Habsburg had moved the familys power base from Habsburg Castle to the Duchy of Austria. Rudolph had become King of Germany in 1273, and the dynasty of the House of Habsburg was truly entrenched in 1276 when Rudolph became ruler of Austria, which the Habsburgs ruled until 1918. A series of dynastic marriages enabled the family to expand its domains to include Burgundy, Spain and its colonial empire, Bohemia, Hungary. In the 16th century, the separated into the senior Habsburg Spain and the junior Habsburg Monarchy branches. The House of Habsburg became extinct in the 18th century, the senior Spanish branch ended upon the death of Charles II of Spain in 1700 and was replaced by the House of Bourbon. It was succeeded by the Vaudemont branch of the House of Lorraine, the new successor house styled itself formally as the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, although it was often referred to as simply the House of Habsburg. His grandson Radbot, Count of Habsburg founded the Habsburg Castle, the origins of the castles name, located in what is now the Swiss canton of Aargau, are uncertain. There is disagreement on whether the name is derived from the High German Habichtsburg, or from the Middle High German word hab/hap meaning ford, the first documented use of the name by the dynasty itself has been traced to the year 1108. The Habsburg Castle was the seat in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. The Habsburgs expanded their influence through arranged marriages and by gaining political privileges, in the 13th century, the house aimed its marriage policy at families in Upper Alsace and Swabia. They were also able to high positions in the church hierarchy for their members. Territorially, they often profited from the extinction of other families such as the House of Kyburg. By the second half of the 13th century, count Rudolph IV had become one of the most influential territorial lords in the area between the Vosges Mountains and Lake Constance

The Holy Roman Emperor (historically Romanorum Imperator "Emperor of the Romans") was the ruler of the Holy Roman …

Coats of arms of prince electors surround the Holy Roman Emperor's; from flags book of Jacob Köbel (1545). Electors voted in an Imperial Diet for a new Holy Roman Emperor.

Illustration of the election of Henry VII (27 November 1308) showing (left to right) the Archbishop of Cologne, Archbishop of Mainz, Archbishop of Trier, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Saxony, Margrave of Brandenburg and King of Bohemia (1341 miniature).

A golden bust of Frederick I, given to his godfather Count Otto of Cappenberg in 1171. It was used as a reliquary in Cappenberg Abbey and is said in the deed of the gift to have been made "in the likeness of the emperor".

Penny or denier with Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, struck in Nijmegen.

Frederick Barbarossa as a crusader, miniature from a copy of the Historia Hierosolymitana, 1188.

Frederick Barbarossa, middle, flanked by two of his children, King Henry VI (left) and Duke Frederick VI (right). From the Historia Welforum.

The House of Habsburg (German pronunciation: [ˈhaːpsbʊʁk], traditionally spelled Hapsburg in English), also called …

Growth of the Habsburg Empire in Central Europe

A map of the dominion of the Habsburgs following the Battle of Mühlberg (1547) as depicted in The Cambridge Modern History Atlas (1912); Habsburg lands are shaded green, but do not include the lands of the Holy Roman Empire over which they presided, nor the vast Castilian holdings outside of Europe, particularly in the New World.